JUST BEFORE - LIFE!

So much to reflect on as we get closer to our big 15^th anniversary party.

Where did the name "LIFE 100.3" come from?

Well, I worked at WAY-FM in Nashville and I wanted something like "way" - as in "He is the way, the truth and the life". And I didn’t like "Truth" for a name - it sounded cheesy to me. So, that left "life".

I was in church one day, and the verse the pastor was preaching on was 1 Peter 1:3 - "he has given us everything we need for life" - and it was like a confirmation!  I got excited!  I sat in the pew thinking, "yes that's it!"

As I thought about "life" as the name for the radio station, all these spin-off ideas came to mind - like "the word of life" when we announce a scripture verse, and "the LIFE-lines" instead of "the request lines".

I still have a list of spin-off ideas from "life" that I have yet to use.

Before we went on the air on August 15, 1999, we were trying to keep the name "LIFE 100.3" a secret. I had decided on the name a year before, but only four people knew it - me, my wife, my daughter and son. They were sworn to secrecy. Oh, and the graphics guy.

About four months before sign-on, I asked Ron Hooft, our graphics guy, to design me a logo. He came up with a dozen variations of the LIFE 100.3 logo, and the one you know today is the one I chose. I liked the red "dot", since I had already decided that we would say "dot" instead of "point". And I liked the "live it" slogan, which wasn’t part of the concept - Ron added it, and I liked it.

About two months before sign-on, I brought all the announcers together and announced the name. They knew the were in on a very big secret and you could have cut the excitement in the room with a knife.

Another radio friend told me about the smart way to launch a new radio station and that was to have the DJs do practice shows. Well, our studio was still being built a month before we signed on the air, so we couldn’t practice in the studio.

So, we practised in my parents basement, where I was living at the time. I didn’t want the DJs to sound like rookies, (which they were), so we spent a lot of time going over - everything. I remember our first Breakfast Club team - Ben and Susan - practising introducing songs as I played them off my cassette player, rewinding the songs over and over - "do it again!"  They were reading weather and introing traffic and saying "LIFE 100.3" over and over.

"I need more smile when you talk" I would tell them. "Ok, that’s good but get excited when you introduce the song!"

Those weekend practices in the basement of my parents house, helped smooth off the edges.  Ahhhh...the early days! Unforgetable.